The Stale New s Bi-w eekly Magazine Thursday, January 18, 1968 ihgn tt Nw, at asn, Michigan Lansing, East News, State Michigan 2
C alendar of Events . 1 8 - J a n . 3 1 Thursday, January 18, 1968 3 Buildings we’ve got; but Sporty is art?
By JIM YOUSLING
Here they are, ladles and gentlemen: M SU's contributions to the fine arts. First we have "Sparty," the Spirit of MSU trapped inside a masterpiece reminiscent of our Auditorium WPA mural— a Cecil B. DeMlIle god modestly attired in baggy trousers, a cross between Rodin and Grant Wood. Next there Is a pleasant work which is ab stract enough to be arty, but not too abstract to offend anyone (as Chicago’s 5-story Picasso does). Once there were a pair of them, but during the demolition of the old band shell, the crew Inadvertently bashed the second one to smithereens. We are fortunate that this one W HERE AM I? An abstracted woman, was safely removed to Its present home, the exiled to the" Muele Building. M usic Building, before the construction, people could build Bessey Hall atop it. An Irreplace able treasure. Finally, we have an ultra-modern work (No Photo* by Bob Ivins squares, wel) which is gracefully perched upon a pile of cement blocks in front of the Cyclo tron Building. One suspects that It Is titled something appropriate like "M an’s Quest Fori Truth On a Pile of Cement” or ’’Cyclotron, A b stra c tio n N o . L ” And that's it. Outside of Kresge Art Center, these three statues are M SU's Idea of beauty. Our architecture runs from the banality of Morrill Hall to the sterility of Wells. Our stock of murals and paintings extend very little beyond those zodiac things on the Brody Group and die "authentic reproductions'* of Renoir and others which are spewed through the Union. Other points of Interest include the Levi R. Taft Rock (at the Haslett Entrance triangle) and the stuffed polar bear In the Natural Resources foyer. Somehow, many people have gotten the Im pres sion that we have a beautiful campus. We must owe this honor totally to our landscape artists, our estimated 55 million worth of trees (each with its very own labell), die Red Cedar Sewage System, our winding streets, and a hoard of ducks. All totalled up, they create a pretty W HAT AM I? A contemporary work, nice place In which to live. dumped on a m ass-producedpedestal. But bow much longer can we plop our m ass- produced skyscrapers among the natural beauty, expecting the slow-growing’ trees and Ivy to conceal their ugliness? MSU needs to utilize not only Its forestry experts, but its painters and sculptors as well, to say nothing of the need for some architects who are poetic as well as functional. Even if It does cost more. Although Kresge has some quality work, only British art the art majors ever see it. Certainly MSU Is a tightly-budgeted Institute of learning: but just as certainly It can justify supporting its own artists by buying their work and spreading i n D e t r o i t It around die campus among die gardens, trees, and so-called buildings. Sparty deserves a "Romantic Art In Britain: Paintings and better embodyment, statues needn't be clumsily Drawings, 1760-1860,” the biggest art exhibition destroyed, and art deserves a little more respect than a pedestal of cement blocks. It might cheer WHO AM I? The spirit of MSU, of the new year, is now in progress at die Detroit unaffected by the weather or progress. Institute of Arts. The show, which opened Jan. up all up a little. 9, w ill extend through Feb. 18. The exhibition consists of 236 works by British artists of the Romantic Era. Although the show includes the works of masters such as Gains borough, Reynolds, Constable, Turner and Blake, A B O U T M I K E It focuses attention on artists not previously . . . Why Th* shown In the U.S. Reflecting the importance of its scholarly prem ise— the re-evaluation of B ritish artists In relation to the modern art explosions of the 19th U N ISP H E R E ® century— the exhibition Is under the official Is The Official patronage of Queen Elizabeth II and President Microphone Of Joh n so n . Herman's Hermits According to W illis F. Woods, director of the O n T o u r Detroit Institute of Arts, and Dr. Evans H. Turner, director of the Philadelphia Museum of ,krt, Herman knows his micro the collection constitutes "the most Important and phone is his link with his audience. He wants you to original exhibition of British art ever shown hear his voice and the lyr here or abroad.” ics, naturally, without Aside from contributions from England’s great- howling feedback, without est art galleries, he unprecedented display in annoying close-up breath cludes loans from the Royal Collection and private "pop”, without audience sounds. Pretty tough test owners such as the Duke of Northumberland. for a microphone . . . rou The display, which has taken three years to tine for the incomparable prepare, will re-open In Philadelphia on March Shure Unisphere. Just ask 14. During the Detroit showing there will he a the better groups. general adm ission charge of $1. Students w ill be Shun Brothers, Inc. admitted for 25 cents. For those especially 222 Hartley Ave. Interested, the Institute will provide special Evanston, III. 60204 t^urs and feature related lectures and films. © 1967 Shure Brothers. Inc 4 Michigan State News, East Lansing, Michigan Vietnam before the West
By LAW RENCE BATTISTINI
Copyright 1968 Lawrence H. Battîstlnî, professor of social science at Vietnam is pert of an area in Southeast As la w h ic h qp to and shortly after World War II MSU was educated at Brown University arqj Trinity College. #as commonly known In the West as French Indo He received his Ph.D. at Yale. Specializing W U.S. foreign china. The region today la made 19 flt V ie tn a m . relations, with an em phasis on U.S.—Aslan affairs, he Is the and Laos. About 70 per cent of the author of six books In this area. His experience includes population of the Indochina area consists of four years as professor of history at Sophia University Vietnamese, who are concentrated In preeent- In Tokyo; extensive travel in Europe and Asia; and service day Vietnam, which when w der French co n tro l as an intelligence officer during W orld W ar II. of the three administrative regions of In an effort to stimulate informed debate on U.S. involve Cochin-China, Annam and Tonkin. Culturally t.u«t Vietnamese are linked to the Chinese, where- ment in Southeast Asia, Collage has asked Professor Battls- as the *>«*■<««« and Laotians are closer cul tlni to w rite a se rie s of five articles on the history of turally to die Thais, the Burm ese and die Indians. Vietnam and Western power there, drawing from the manu Vietnam Is today a country artificially divided script of his new book. In the coming weeks, these articles at approximately the seventeenth paralleL This will cover the French conquest and loss of Vietnam, U.S. partition took place at Geneva In 1954. Communist displacement of France, U.S. escalation of the war, and North Vietnam has an area of some 62,000 square finally a concluding evaluation of the Vietnam issue. miles and a population estimated In 1962 at 16,200,000. South Vietnam, as demarcated by the Geneva Agreements/ Is 65,000 square miles, and has s slightly sm aller population, estimated at 15,317.000 In 1963. The total area of all remaining In southern China were conquered by piration of the Annamese to be free of foreigi Vietnam, then. Is 127,000 square miles, making the powerful Ch’ln emperor 01 China. Shlh Huang domination, no matter Its benefits. it considerably larger than Italy, and Its total Ti, about 221 B.C. Within three years this Taking advantage of the anarchy prevailing lr population, estimated at 31,517,000 in 1963, Is about expansionist emperor brought under his control China after the fall of the once resplendent the same as Spain. the little Annamese kingdom which then extended Tang dynasty in 907, a Ngo Quyen headed ar The Vietnamese people of today are among as far south as Hue. A decade later. In 208 B.C., insurrection which In 939 succeeded in expelling th. most homogeneous of A sia. The main stream the rebellious Chinese general Chao T o es the Chinese, and established an Independent of the present-day’Vietnamese, originally located tablished an independent kingdom that embraced Annamese kingdom. During the next four and In southern China, migrated Into northern Viet the present Chinese provinces of Kuangtung, a half centuries Annam was governed by five nam several centuries before Christ as s result Klangsi and Annam, with its capital at Canton. native dynasties. Each of these dynasties uti rf the pressure of the southward-moving Chinese. This kingdom, known as the Nan Yueh or Nam lized Chinese political institutions and norms of j iw» other expansive people of history, these Viet (Southern Viet) endured for nearly a cen government. Despite the expulsion of the Chinese, Vietnamese gradually extended their domain tury, until 111 B.C. In that year It was con their values and Institutions remained dominant - southward until they dominated all of Vietnam quered and annexed by Wu T l of the great Han The native Vietnamese dynasties were for some and -ngnlforf « number of sm aller ethnic groups. dynasty, which in Its most flourishing periods time almost continuously engaged in conflict more than rivalled the Roman empire in the high Even today. In South Vietnam alone, there are with a Malaysian people to the south. These substantial numbers of Mol or Montaguards, level of its civilization. people, the Chams, whose land was knwrn as rii.m g and Khm ers (Cambodians), not to mention F o r more than a thousand years,until 939 A.D., Champa, had been In a primitive stage of de the Annamese people remained under Chinese more than half a million Chinese of relatively velopment until Indian culture was brought to them domination. During this long period the An recent Immigration. by Indian merchants who came by sea. About The Vietnamese story really begins In the fourth namese elites became thoroughly Sinicized, anc 192 A.D. a Cham kingdom was established by a century B.C., when what Is mwr the United States many of them intermarried with the Chinese. Hindu ruler, knevm as Sri Mara. Under Indian was a wilderness inhabited by primitive Indians Chinese culture, which was then far superior tc rulers the Cham people progressed rapidly from and totally unknown to the Western world. In any other In the Far East, was adopted whole the hunting and fishing stage to agriculture and that distant century the Vlets, a branch of the sale by the Vietnamese, greatly elevating the cul trade. Largely as a result of their extensive Yueh people of the Thai family. Inhabited an area tural level of the country. With the Influx oi trade, the Chams developed close relations with below the Yangtse River In what is now the Chinese culture came Buddhism, Confucianism, the Chinese and even dispatched tribute-bearing m iinne province of Chekiang, where they es Taoism , the system of writing In characters, anc m issions to the T ’ang (618-907) and Sung (960- tablished a kingdom. Compelled to floe before a very advanced technology, considering the 1279) emperors of China. The strength and a warlike people known as the Tsin, they moved p e rio d . resources of the Cham rulers were taxed, how Despite the enrichment of Annamese culture southward to the Canton (Kuangchou) area, and ever, by the almost continuous struggle with their through contact with the Chinese, who were, after In the third century B.C. entered Tonkin and m ore powerful northern neighbors, the Annamese, northern Annam. In these areas the Vlets sub all, an alien people, the Annamese eventually as well as by recurring wars with the powerful became restive and openly rebellious. Moreover, jugated the native Inhabitants, many of whom Khmer empire of that time. In the thirteenth were of Indonesian stock, and Intermarried freely Annam was a very great distance from the im century the Chams were for a time actually with them. Out of this Intermingling came a perial capital of China, and the Chinese of reduced to the position of a m ere province of the new people, the historic Annamese. ficials in remote Annam were able to carry 01 Khmer empire. In their new home In northern Vietnam, these practically without being accountable to their em With the fall of the Sung dynasty and the con Yueh or Viet Invaders laid the foundations of a peror. Consequently many of these bureau quest of China by the Mongols, the land of Viet realm which later became known as the Kingdom crats tended to become autocratic, overbearing nam was again threatened by Invasion from the of Annam. Other branches of the Thai people and corrupt, thereby increasing the natural as north. Between 1257 and 1286 Kublal Khan dis patched three expeditions against Annam and one against Champa. Although both Annam and Champa were Invaded and pillaged, they both managed to drive off the Mongol Invaders and preserve their Independence. The struggle against a common enemy, the Mongols, resulted In friendlier relations between the Annamese and the Chams. In 1307 the ruling houses of the two kingdoms were united by m ar riage, but the m arriage did not ensure the unity of the country. Taking advantage of disputes In Annam over rival claims to the throne, the energetic Ming emperor of China, Yung Lo, in 1413 dispatched . an army to Annam and conquered the country, which was again incorporated into China and placed under the administration of a Chinese governor-general and a corps of Chinese man darins, or bureaucrats. The Chinese administra tors attempted to Introduce a number of re forms based on then current Chinese models, but they were resisted. The brief Chinese oc cupation sharply aroused the Annamese spirit of nationalism, and In 1418 Annamese nationalists under the leadership of Le Loi rose In rebellion and launched a protracted guerrilla war against their conquerors. The struggle lasted for 10 years, until 1428, when Le Lol captured die last C hinese stronghold in Annam at Hanoi and liberated the country. Yung Lo had died in 1424, however, and his successor had actually had no Interest In maintaining the Chinese presence in Southeast Asia. The Le dynasty established by Le Loie effec-
(Continued on page 5.) Thursday, January 18, 1968 5 V iet history (Continued from page 4.) tlvely controlled Annam for nearly a century, from 1428 to 1527, during which period the country was relatively well administered. Friendly and beneficial relations were established with China, and Le Lol sent a tribute-bearing mission to Pricing. The Chinese emperor in am i confirmed his right to rule Annam by the grant of an official seal and letter of investi tu re . Dirlng the period of the Le dynasty, An- namese culture advanced significantly, and con tinued to be greatly influenced by that of China. The cumbersome Chinese characters used for writing were simplified and a modified form was developed for writing popular literature. The codes and courts of law were reformed along existing Chinese lines, and new system s of weights and measures and coinage were modeled after those prevailing in China. Literature and art continued to reflect a strong Chinese influence, although infused with a nationalist spirit. Strong and prosperous, the Annamese kingdom expanded to thewest and south. Under the greatest of the Le manarchs, Le Thanh Tong (1460-1497), the Chams were conquered decisively. TheCbam capital was destroyed in 1471 and the last king of the Cham dynasty was taken prisoner. Four of the Cham provinces were directly annexed to An nam, and the fifth was permitted to remain autonomous until the seventeenth century, when it was annexed to Annam. Thus all of the land of Vietnam was unified under a single ruling house. B y the early sixteenth century the once vigorous C am bodia becom es pivot Le dynasty had become decadent, and In 1527 was overthrown by a rebel general who estab lished a new ruling house', known as the Mac. The Mac dynasty remained in power only until 1592, when after many years of civil war the in U .S.-China conflict zon e Le dynasty was nominally restored. Actual ficult, especially with the war now being fought power, however, had fallen into the hands of B y MITCH MILLER on Cambodian soil. two rival families, the Trinh and the Nguyen, N o n a a t these solutions is particularly pleasing, who in effect ruled tw o separate states, a northern Norodom Sihanouk, Prince and premier at so what may emerge from Sihanouk’s conferences and southern one respectively. Cambodia, has never been accused of allowing with Chester Bowles and Ms subsequent de consistency to affect M s foreign policy. The Trinh were the actual rulers of Tonkin and cision about the problem of "hot pursuit’’ Is Hanoi was their capital. The Nguyen were the Yet Sihanouk’s conduct Is neither Inscrutable another possibility, one wMch might lead to actual rulers of the south, roughly corresponding nor inexplicable. As the ruler of an almost a real dampening of the entire war, if both to the old Cham kingdom, and their capital was powerless country in the zone of conflict between parties pisy their cards right. at Hue. When not fighting each other, these two the spheres at influence of the United States Numerous signals have been leaked that in virtually independent areas were tom by internal and China, he has succeeded in making Ms dicate that the situation may be dropped in the struggles for power. This situation endured for nation a pivot lather than a pawn. lap of the International Control Commission, about 200 years, throughout the seventeenth and He is caught between M s princely distrust the body wMch was supposed to supervise the eighteenth centuries. of the latter-day Middle Kingdom and his realiza execution of the Geneva accords of1954, but wMch Around 1786 prince Nguyen Anh, worsted in a tion as a premier that a state so close to Com has been reduced to Ineffectuality by the war and struggle for the southern thn^je, fled the country munist China’s borders cannot commit Itself to by general lack of support. and took refuge in Bangkok, where he obtained the West without trepidation. Should the ICC be given the role of policing tbe sympathy and support of } French Catholic In Sihanouk's wildly varying statements from the Cambodian border, it would have to be bishop. Plgneau de Behalne. Nguyen Anh later day to day as to whether or not be will allow, strengthened manyfold. The three «wnmiaefon returned to southern Vietnam, and with French perm it, o r support pursuit of Communist forces members, Canada, India and Poland might be assistance succeeded in coqqimrlng Saigon. By from Vietnam Into Cambodia, one sees Ms attempt supplying, or calling on other nations or tha 1801 he had extended his conquests as far north as to resolve Ms dilemma. UN Emergency Force to supply large numbers Hanoi, and in the following year he deposed On the one hand he cannot really do anything, of troops. Financial support, from the United the shadowy Le emperor and bad himself pro If the United States or its allies do exercise the States probably, flaunted through the UN might claimed emperor of all Annam, under the reign "right of hot pursuit.’’ He has neither the pay for the troops and their sq pon . name Gia Long. military force, nor the desire to support the During Ms long reign Gia Long effectively uni Communists, who have threatened Ms state. A revitalized IOC might take on the mlsalen of petrolling other borders, and enforcing a fied all of Vietnam and laid tbe foundations of a On the other hand, he cannot sqpport a U .S. cease-fire or ova a possible truce. Not that modem state, for that time. The entire adminis "Invasion** of Cambodian territory in pursuit of It would do a batter Job at such ch o n s, but if trative structure was reformed and extensive the little brothers of Ms giant neighbor, ac the ICC wan involved, border or truce vio public works were undertaken. Seventy years cessible as he is to overt and covert operations directed from Laos by the Pathet Lao and from lations would bo agMnst an impartial, world before the Japanese did so, Gia Long grasped body rather than agrinst one of die belligerents. that an Aslan nation by adopting Western technol Vietnam by the Viet Cong. The United States seems committed to It should be quite dear that these actions ogy and science could turn the aggressive im are political moves. Military «-hi», pact of the West to its own advantage. des tr oying the Communists m ilitarily, and thus It cannot be expected that they will be permitted dm bombing of tha North, have b a a notoriously Bishop do Behalne had anticipated that in re unsuccessful In iuesrdkxing Infiltration of men san ctu ary Indefinitely, whether In Cambodia, turn for die aid he had beat given, Gia Long Laos, or tbs demilitarized zone of North Vietnam. and supplies by the Communists into Viet nam. Weald • privileges and benefits on France. Bombing has proved in effective against the Initially d a Lang did employ a number of Freach- movement af men or supplies along Jungle paths, By suddenly is snrslatlng. and by flung In men as specialists and advisers, and was not and ground action is therefore almost inevitable. an International bogy (two of whose members, mifrlendly to Catholic missionary activity, which But taking tMo step would involve a m ajor es Poland and India, are openly hostile to die was extremely aggressive. Toward the end of calation, at a time when the United States is United States), dda country could remove from Ms reign, however, a strong reaction developed seeking desperately to get world opinion on its Itself the onus af vtelanee in Vietnam. It could against the presence of the French and other side, and whan President Johnson is facing an shift to the C n m m a lB r a the antipathy, bach hare Westerners in the country. increasingly nervous electorate. It la not email and abroad, which has boa directed a us. Gia Long was greatly alarmed by the British nations alone that face dtlemmaa. This tromandano paHftcal praaenianil|hila'liig of q T r " * h 1819, ¿ad shortly before Sihanouk has many options open to Mm, but Ho Chi Kfinh and the Viet Coeg to dm negotiating Ms death in 1820 he urged hi* successor , Minh they can be subsumed Into s few basic moves. table. Mang (1820-1841), to deal correctly widi Western One, he can actively aqppoit the United States At dm vary laser, the war might he reduced to ers but to be wary of them, especially the French. in its hot pursuit of the Viet Cong. This would a level where dm Udtsd States could withdraw x wham he euqpected of having designs on the necessitate his becoming a satellite of die U.S., many af its combat troops and still prosecute country. Mlnh Mang and Ms successors, TMeu supported and maintained by us and doubtlessly dm war urcasafully. TH (184-1847) and Tu Due (1847-1883), turned under attack by the Communists. He almost The likelihood a t such a development is m ln- their bodes on the West sad once again looked certainly will not take this course. escule. It Is pcodfeatod a n a political sopMs- to China for cultural Inspiration and sqpport Two, he could actively oppose U.S. interven dcation which does net exist in this country. against foreign (French) aggression. The alien tion, resist It militarily, three ten tf bring in Com It would require dm sodden awa reness am dm dynasty, wMch had been In control of munist Chins, take the United Statea before the UN, part of policy-makers that dda la a political China since die middle of tbe seventeenth cen and in general only make Ufo worse for tMs w ar, ana which must be fought an fronts that tu m , continued to recognize the "suzerain- country. In such a case die United Statea would they have not cmml dared oven applicable here vassal** relationship between CMna and Annam tad not cro ss Ms borders, but he would be forced tofore, notably the incaraadcnal peHrtcal scene. its responsibility to offer protection against ex into China’s arms, a situation wMch he does That such a aoludan might develop oat of what ternal aggression. What the Vietnamese imperial not want either. la a peripheral loans may seem unlikely. But house did not understand was that this once Three, Sihanouk might passively permit UJS. viewed in the caomm af UjS. itoaperarlen, and greet dynasty was in decadence, that CMna had o r South Vietnamese troops In Ms territory while a t Sihanouk’s datsrmlnadon and ability to main become grievously misgoverned by corrupt and still attempting to maintain a fence-sitting role, tain a power <■»—*- In Southeast Asia, it la »’• (Continued on page 12.) a position that even the Prince might find dif not as Improbable as may seem. ¿Michigan State News, East Lansing, Michigan 1
BOOKMARKS Quixote in the land of DeGoulle hearted vignettes written by Hemingway in his By M. THOMAS INGE masterpiece of literary revenge “A Moveable F e a s t . " Salamanca, Spain, December, 1967 Whitman maintains M iss Beach's congenial air Of hospitality. His shop motto reads, "W e “ I don't think editing a' little magazine is a ny wish our guests to enter with the feeling they more an honorable profession than fishing; but have inherited a boo kilned apartment on the it Is more fun," or so George Whitman writes Seine which is all the more delightful because me from Paris where he is engaged In pub they share it with others.” And of the shop he lishing "The,Paris Magazine." notes, “I consider it as much yours as mine, Such publications have a long a honorable his even more so because you can do what you tory in American literature, beginning with M ar please while I have to keep things in order. • • garet Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The But sometimes, when I am scrubbing floors at D ial" (1840-1844); moving into the present cen 2 o’clock in the morning, I am tom between tury with such little magazines as Harriet Mon the wish to lock everyone out because it is roe's "Poetry” (1912-present), Margaret Ander so much trouble to pick up after people, or son's "T he Little Review” (1914-1929), the New lock everyone in because my guests are so con Orleans "Double Dealer” (1921-1929) and the g e n ia l. " Nahsvllle Fugitive (1922-4925); and surviving In such varied modern forms as “The Partisan The shop has lasted 16 years (while in America Review,” “Accent,” "The Kenyon Review," five out of every 10 bookshops opened are closed and die "Evergreen Review." within a year, and only one lasts 10 y e a r s ), but Whitman has not sold one of the 25,000 The more direct forebears of the latest addition volumes in his stock for almost a year. The to the list, which Its editor dubs “ the poor French government has condemned him for m an's 'P a ris Review,’ " were the numerous little running an illegal business, although he reports, magazines published in London and Paris during “ I have applied for a foreign businessman's the 192(7s by American expatriates, like “ The a little week in the bathroom, girls in scarlet card in order to be allowed to sell books again Criterion,” “Transition," “ Exile," “ Broom,” tights, one muscular smooth skinned man and hope to receive a favorable response before and "Secession,” where the early work of TJ5. sweating dancing for hours, beer cans too many years have passed.” Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hem bent littering the yard, a hanged man ingway and William Carlos Williams appeared. sculpture dangling from a high creek branch, While he waits, he keeps his doors open children sleeping softly in bedroom bunks, as a free lending library— “a private library The one thing they all had in common was a and four police cars parked outside the painted open by invitation to the public” — from abroad. preference for publishing the work of the liter gate, red lights revolving in the leaves. In an upstairs apartment, he maintains “ The ary avant-garde, the young dissidents and ex The references are contemporary, the vocab Free University of Paris,” which offers poetry perimenters who wanted to defy and reshape readings, courses, debates and seminars on ulary has changed, and as in "Kansas City to the prevailing traditions of the moment. “ The literature and politics. How he survives is the Saint L o u is" the secret sensual pleasures Whitman Paris Magazine,” however, does not aspire to mystery, as he is not a man of independent only hinted at are made blatantly clear, but be as creative as all that; its goals are simpler. m e a n s. Ginsberg yet prom ises to be the most authentic “ If we can achieve a little humor and explore voice of the American underground conscience the universe together this magazine may be an In this century’s poetry. This niay be true, in The winter issue of "The Paris Magazine,” adventure,” says Whitman. “Unlike the big spite of the fact that his colleague, Lawrence already at press, includes an essay on Ionesco anonymous publications we can at least go back Ferlinghetti, is hands down the better poet. by Henry Miller and an article by H J. Pollock to the days of personal journalism when a poet, on Joyce in Paris. The subscription price carpenter, bookseller, printer and journalist for four quarterly Issues is $2, payable to the like Walt Whitman would publish manifestos or A s interesting as the magazine itself is, equally publisher, Guy Foreau. It may be mailed to set up the type for his own book of poems.” fascinating is its editor, George Whitman, a Shakespeare and Company, 35 rue de la Bucherie, But very much like the little magazines of slender congenial American expatriate from P a r is 5. yesteryear. Whitman's is directed to an un Taunton, M ass.,. who strikes die figure of a fortunately limited audience— those willing to take yet optimistic Don Quixote with his wispy goatee To change slightly Arthur Guiterman's lines, life with an intelligent amount of sane humor— (he is an impassioned defender of beards), may the “ God who watches over children, drunk and is not commercially oriented— it got off and styles himself "the illegitimate gre a t- ards and fools/ With silent miracles and other the ground with a first run of 5,000 copies but grandson of Walt Whitman.” such esotérica/ Suspand the ordinary rules,” o n ly subscribers on the rolls. 12 and watch out for George Whitman. The first number, which appeared in October, When he came to Paris 16 years ago, it was contains such items as a selection of letters by not his intention to edit a little magazine but Lawrence Durrell, a report by Edward Lucte- rather to be a book-seller. Placing himself in Smith on the momentous development of "The the line of descent o.f even another literary Little Presses in England," a very promising geneology, he now calls his shop Shakespeare short story called "Fog” by Barbara Shatzkln, and Company, after the famous bookshop operated EDITO R’S NOTEt M. Thomds Inge, as "Pictures of Vietnam at War” with photos by by Sylvia Beach in Paris in the 192(7s. Miss sistant professor of Am erican Thought Roger Pic and text by Jean Paul Sartre, an Beach, it will be remembered, was the great interview with Marguerite Duras in French, a friend and aide of many members of the lost and Language, Is a 1967-68 Fulbrlght "Poets Tribune” representing a wide selection generation and was (publisher of Joyce’s Immortal Lecturer In American Literature, of poems by unknown and well-known poets from Ulysses. She has the almost unique dlsdncdon of presently at the University of Sala all over die world and a general section of having earned one of the few kind and warm- manca, Spain. brief contributions on such subjects as the Arab-Israeli war, Vietnam, Malcolm X, political liberalism and drugs. If one suspects a par Change a w inter diplom a ticular political or ideological slant in this line up, they should note, as Whitman does himself, into a spring passport that “ fa this Issue I seem to have made bed fellows of a- genial monarchist like Lawrence to overseas service Durrell and a Marxist like Jean Paul Sartre.” Perhaps the most notable contribution to the W inter graduates who apply for Peace Corps service by Feb issue are excerpts from work in progress by ruary 10 can be overseas by early summer in any one of 25 Allen Ginsberg, die aging leader of the once programs ranging from education to smallpox eradication in avant-garde Beatnik movement and patron saint Thailand . . . Togo . . . India . . . Brazil . . . and dozens of of the flower children. Still strident and ideal other countries. istic, occasionally turning off a striking image M a i l this c o u p o n today. Expect to hear from us tomorrow. or line, Ginsberg is getting more and more like his spiritual god-father Walt Whitman lr I j his attempt to soul-klss the psychedelic scene J Applicant Services Peace Corps, Washington, D. C. 20525 i and the entire American landscape. Note "F irst Party at Ken Kesey*s with Hell's Angels”: I N am e:______» | (First) (Last) I Cool black night thru the redwoods cars parked outside In the shade • Current Address:______i . (Street & Number) (City) (State) i behind die gate, stars dim above the ravine, a fire burning by the side | College:______M a jor:______» porch and a few tired souls hunched over j Availability: Winter Grad* □ May/June Grad □ Other______i in black leather jackets. In the huge | Send: Information only □ Application only I wooden house, a yellow chandelier > Application & Information Q at 3 a.m. and the blast of loudspeakers hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beades ■ * Applications received by February 10 will be considered for spring programs. | — — ——————— — —— — — —— — —— J Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths Contributed by Friends of the Peace Corps dancing to the vibration thru the floor, Thursday, January 18, 1968 7
MUSIC Ormandy:30 years of music By JIM ROOS
Anniversaries, ephemeral though they be, are special profile of the great violinist tomorrow landmarks of continuity and change. Not long ago the musical world was celebrating the 30th evening at 10 p.m. on NBC’s Bell Telephone H o u r. anniversary of Eugene Orm andy's tenure with the Another 40th anniversary worth noting (Jan. 12) Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, an association celebrated the American debut of pianist Vladi that has been documented by hundreds of record m ir Horowitz. Horowitz made his appearance to ings— first for RCA Victor and later Columbia R e c o r d s . gether with the late Sir Thomas Beecham (who incidentally also was appearing for the first Now word has come that after more than 20 time on these shores). years with Columbia, Ormandy and the Philadel phians have called it quits and are returning to Sir Thomas’ program, unusually long by Am eri the Victor label. can standards, was stuffed with off-beat Handel (e«g.. Overture to “ Tesseo” ) and naturally his The split is apparently the result of a basic beloved Delius. However, the audience did not have disagreement between Ormandy and Columbia much of a chance to savor Beecham’s leisurely officials over the number of recordings the or approach for Horowitz quickly stole the show. chestra would be contracted to make and the The 24-year-old firebrand riddled off a per • type of repertory Ormandy would be alloted for recordings. formance of Tchaikovsky’s B flat major Con- certo that had the audience virtually hysterical For many years Ormandy has been dissatis fied with his reputation as a "technicolor” con and applauding throughout the interm ission. Rare ly has Carnegie Hall seen such a furor. ductor, one who is interested primarily in the The sheer frenzy of Horowitz's attack and the Romantics and Impressionists. He has had to animal excitement generated by the wizardry of content himself with a recorded repertory which, his technique resulted in a new approach to piano if by no means sm all, has emphasized such com playing that has had unquestioned Impact upon an maninoff Etudes-Tahleaux and as a first encore posers as Respighi, Richard and Johann Strauss, entire generation of pianists. None of Horowitz's Schumann's ‘‘TrmumereL” Debussy, Brahms, Sibelius and the like. Only imitators have ever been able to re-create the Then it happened! According to New York rarely has he been granted the luxury of record fantastic pyrotechnlcal stunts that he alone seems Times critic Harold Schonberg, “ Mr. Horo ing a Mozart of Haydn symphony. These have capable of performing. For example, the impos witz sat down, glanced quizzically at his au generally been reserved for other Columbia sible variations on Sousa's “Stars and Stripes dience, grinned and launched into his arrange conductors like Bernstein or Szell. ment of the "‘Carmen Fantasy*' showering die Forever" (created for performance at War Bond Thus, the new RCA contract gives Ormandy audience with sprays of notes, with volleys of Drives during World War □) or the breath-tak- increased opportunities to make recordings and fortissim os, with streaking octaves, and freakish lng, super-virtuosity of his own variations on an essentially free hand at choosing repertoire. passagework. When he finished, it was pandemo themes from Bizet’s “ Carmen." And the Maestro hopes that both he and his or nium.” After his 25th anniversary recital in 1953 chestra members will benefit from increased Apparently the “ old Horowitz” has returned. Horowitz suddenly stopped playing in public, recording royalties and perhaps a m ore*‘serious” Or perhaps what we have been calling the “ new im a g e . although he still made occasional recordings. Horowitz” is simply a “ better Horowitz,” more Then, in May, 1965 following twelve years of It Is understandable that M r. Ormandy has, as he seasoned, musically matured yet at 64 still capable absence from the stage he returned. put it, “ mixed feelings” about leaving Columbia. of all we have known and expected of him in the The "new Horowitz” brought with him all his After all, it is not simply an association with a p ast. old technique, but he was determined to avoid record company that is ending, but also future Thus, anniversaries such as those of Ormandy, the wild stunts of previous years. His approach recording collaborations with his oid friends Menuhin and Horowitz serve as excellent re to everything was slightly more relaxed, Im Rudolf Serkin, Issac Stern, Leonard Rose and minders that great artists have that extraor others— all of whom record for Columby. mediately more musically profound than be dinary ability to maintain a unique level of achieve fore. Only occasionally did a Chopin Etude or Yet, the picture is still bright. With the new ment over incredibly long periods of tim e, while Scriabin Sonata sbow traces of the frenetic contract, not only can Maestro Ormandy explore continually adding new dimensions to their artis ‘ ‘o ld H o ro w it z ." the world of Schubert, Bach and Beethoven to his try . Barely a month ago, the ‘‘new Horowitz” was satisfaction, he can also look forward to collabora- This capacity to endure, yet grow Is no easy giving a recital in Carnegie Hall (the fifth since * tions with some of his old RCA Victor cronies: feat, and in fact deserves some sort of celebra his 1965 return). The program included a Bee Rubinstean and Heifetz. tion. Let's see—OJC. Vladimir, how about an thoven Sonata (Op. 101), a Chopin group, Rach Back to anniversaries proper, violinist Yehudi arrangement of the Anniversary Waltz 1 Menuhin recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of his sensational debut at Carnegie Hal), Novem ber 27, 1927. Together with what was then known as the New York Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Busch conducting, the 11 year old wunderyind pre sented his interpretation of die Beethoven Violin Concerto to an astounded audience. Initially, Busch did not want Menuhin to play the Beethoven Concerto. He insisted that no 11 year old could perform such a profound masterpiece with the requisite degree of musical ngturity. Busch said that it would be the equivalent of “ asking Jackie Coogan to play ‘Hamlet.” ’ It Is possible that part of Busch's resistance was precipitated by the fact that he had planned to perform his own symphony at the same concert and didn't relish the idea of sc' ne prodigy hogging the spotlight. In fact, Busch who was a child prodigy him self, had an Intense dislike for the self-styled and often brattlsh ‘‘genulses” foisted upon him by ambitious pa rents. However, Menuhin had come x by arrangement through Enesco and Bruno Walter (hardly “ fly-by-night" musicians) and Busch had to concede to a pre-concert audition before Menuhin’s request to play Beethoven could be ru le d out. & is an old story: after hearing the boy play only fifteen bars of the work, Busch agreed to play anything with him. What made little Menu hin so extraordinary, and apart from other child prodigies who also possessed plenty of technical prowess, was his incredible interpretative pre cociousness. At the age of 11, his conception of a musical masterpiece was as mature as that of a great artist of 50. Through the years Menuhin's interpretive powers have ripened to the extent that today, at 51, his name is synonymous with the most lofty alms of penetrating musicianship. Menu hin's humanistic endeavors, his activities in musical education, achievements as conductor of the Bath Festival Orchestra and other Inter esting facets of his career will be part of a 8 Michigan State News, East Lansing, Michigan
McLuhan’s media message By JE F F JUSTIN culture builds on this emotional involvement. emotional involvement between speaker and When Its words are set down on paper or stone, listener. With die new objectivity comes a What happens to you when you watch T.V. these objects acquire m ystic significance because visual emphasis because our sense of sight Is a s compared to when you listen to the radio, as media of communication, they encourage in m ore abstract and objective than our involving as compared to when you read a book? Ac volvement of the whole man. Picture-writing ear. Written’ culture is made of different points cording to Marshall McLuhan, author of “Un becomes an Icon, an object for emotional of “view.’’ derstanding Media,“ “ The Medium is the Mes re v e re n c e . The course of painring illustrates the shifting sage,“ and other works, your mind changes. Such a culture will not tolerate specialization. emphasis. Barbarian art Is flat; it has no per Not the ideas within your mind so much as the So accustomed to the involvement of human speech, spective. It is discontinuous, non-linear. But method by which your mind works. The dif such tribal men won’t fragment themselves by the eye traveling across written lines enabled ferent media tinker with the workings of your dividing their lives Into work and play; they don’t the eye to travel into pictures. Logically, per mind in the same way that an inventor once have jobs, but roles. Thpy won’t spilt up their spective in painting and sculpture appeared In tinkered with them. You change, your world attention. Instead, they involve their whole being. the late Greek and Roman cultures. view changes, your world changes. Behind the Superstition and belief In magic are the natural But people couldn’t see as well in the dark explanation of this process lies McLuhan’s now- expression of their emphasis on emotionally in ages. The destruction of Roman writing, papyrus, famous dictum: “The medium Is the message." volving speech in their world of unextended senses. and ro a d s by aural barbarians resulted in a shift A medium Is an extension of man. The An alphabet explodes all this myth. Suddenly, back to aural culture because the media o f the wheel extends the foot just as the electric emotion is split from reason by the writtenword, R o m a n Empire was destroyed. Painting lost light sharpens our eyesight. Media in the past and the fragmenting of the Individual which occurs it s perspective In the middle ages. The medieval have taken a part of man’s sensory apparatus is accurately imaged throughout McLuhan’s work manuscript lost its point a t view and became an or anatomy and increased Its capability to per by calling the process an explosion. The written ico n , a subject of emotional Involvement. Medie form a function. Tied Into their minds so page stands off from you, separating you from val art became the portrayal of ecstasy. tightly, then, media have necessarily changed involvement with the author. The impassioned Politically, perspective was lost. The linear men In the same way a man blind from birth ring of his voice dies out. You are left to follow chalp of command was broken since only writing would find a different life after receiving his the tracks left by his mind at your leisure. could reach authority out to the ends of the empire, e y e sig h t. No longer the emotional, individual, one-to- only a culture based on the specialization ofwriting It’ s no new thing to notice how our lives one relation of your speaking and another man’s could suffer die bureaucratic specialization of an change when a new medium appears. McLuhan listening. Now the rational, objective, standard empire. In the middle ages people gave up their says, however, that we’ve been numb to a full ized relation of written comm uni cation. Super jobs and went back to roles. The explosion a t sense o f that change, perceiving only the sur stition dies and reason* is born, the objective the empire dissipated Into a multitude of feudal face disturbance of our lives and remaining replacing the subjective. It becomes possible to estates. oblivious to the shifting of the deepest cur lay down the same law for everybody since par Gutenberg relit the fuse. His printing press rents underneath. Simply, like our feeling when ticipation In the written word is the same for ended die subjective ecstasy of the Middle Ages part of our body is suddenly overworked in everybody. Tribal chieftains disappear and dem and inaugurated an age of specialization die new circum stances, we become numb to a sense ocracy is born. Roman Empire only Murad a t. Perspective extended and strained by a new medium. F o r Specialization is the word, the written word. triumphed in art from Giotto on. The role playing Instance, we started out thinking of the auto Solidified in writing, specialized as the letters of rural society, with Its decentralized local mobile as the horseless carriage, not realizing which are bolted together to form a word, one authority ended. The city rone stronger. bow very much faster we would be running. man's viewpoint contributes individually to the The life of die city is specialized, fragmented McLuhan tells us that we mistakenly see forming of a world. No longer the iconic cal life. A political Mite runs things, a working dess the effects a t a medium, not in Its form, but in ligraphy, within which the attention of a whole makes things, a m erchant class sells things, an die content of the form. For example, printing culture elaborates a mythic meaning. Now each army defends things. Nor are these positions produced the assembly line and the emphasis w riter speaks a different voice, his own point of bestowed as roles; they are jobs that can be on the individual that marks later western cul view. But die medium Is the real m essage. Man fhawgwA. Each life Is fragmented also. Into ture. This emphasis has long been attributed just couldn't specialize his thoughts before separate periods of work and play. The barbarian to die Judeo-Cbrlsdan eddc, but die m ore basic phonetic writing. With its discovery, specializa division a t tim t frm day and eight Is exploded cause is the form by which that eddc has been tion is forced. The mythic reality of Homer’s into 24 hours, 1440 minutes. 86,400 seconds. transmitted through the last 500 years—the “Odyssey" and “Iliad” with their oral poetry The society based on die city is life on the printed word. Prim is uniform, continuous, Is fragmented, exploded Into the points of view assembly line, evolved on lines of uniform type. H y«r and specialized. Each letter Is a small of Plato and Aristotle by the rational, unemotional The point-of-vlew, rational objectivity a t the cog in the verbal machine, useless by Itself, alphabet. printing press mmMmI maw to get at the lews a t «MhH its ■ ” !! significance to that of the letter The world expands. There was Isolation In science that in o n mehled them to asiwi uci asm to It, building significance a s our eye die a»wiwni barbarian world* discrete, individual die assembly line, h the i Beemhly line process , moves along the line from left to right. societies each with Its own culture, its own each makas a ^»orlaHzed contrtbutlan to a Words bene power over us es die means by people tied In with each other by their deep ftridwi product. Someone at the head of die which we communicate. Laying then out in participation In the spoken word. With line tells tvarynwe how things a re supposed to uniform lines laid the world out in similar the phonetic alphabet, transmitted on papyrus work and the jdnd of contribution each man is tc lines. We have not noticed dds effect, saya ever newly built roads, the spoken word took make. McLuhan, because we have not payed attention an a different power. It did not subjectively Politically, h h i if nationalism and ultimately to the form of our media, but rather to their Involve, a s It did the tribal man; It objectively mwiiMrim im - McLuhan'■ principles tell us eantaac, which is always another modia. Reading commanded the Roman citizen. The roods built that it all came from the assembly line of the a book at 2 ajn., we perceive dm beak and Rome more than Rome built die roods. book, where one man’ s point of view Is rmt down not the wnKttnm that gives the beak to us, the In the Roman Empire specialization readied the lines of the page, each word and each latter light at our bedside. Actually, we dm't per s new height. The arm y, for example, was no i m M»! its own apodal oonrrlbiwlon to die finished ceive die book a s a form d t h r , since we longer the whole citizenry. Agammenon and product, a world-view. a re r eceptive only to its content, laanan speech. Menelaeus had u t i their counties to the Tro- The urban culture of the 19th Century asked But speech, a book, an electric light have jsn wars. Now the Roman citizen watched the man to ■ «>» w
TELEVISION Steed and Mrs. Peel survive the axe again
By STUART ROSENTHAL Wintle and Clemmens took the traditional An astronomer trains his lens on Venus, cu past of England and die current "swinging** riously observing the unusual brilliance of the Image of die Isle a s embodied in the characters planet while, unnoticed by him, his cup of coffee marking the switchover of the series to film. begins to boil autonomously. Soon sweat is This brought die resources of a large motion pouring from his visage. And then a sudden picture organization to die program. With die silent burst of bright white light. appointment a t Julian Wintle ("T he Human Jun When the scientist's swivel chair has stopped gle”) and Brian Clemmens to die producing revolving, he is quite dead and his hair has chores, ’T he Avengers" took on an entirely been bleached quite white. new aspect. A. frame from a comic strip comes abruptly to life. An agile young lady is engaged in combat of Steed and Miss Rigg’s Emma Peel, respectively, with a large, birdlike creature while both are and set them against the picture postcard pan suspended, contrary to gravity, from the ceiling. orama of Britain, as illustrated In tourist bro Just as the woman appears doomed, a stylishly chures. The England of 'The Avengers" Is dressed man replete with bowler and cravat for removed from the workaday world of London; enters the fray, striking the winged opponent with rather, it Is as the country is promoted over large placards reading "Bam and "Zap” while seas; idyllic fields and stately mansions, atom the sound track bangs out the Batman theme. stations and modern industry. This parody of television comic book heroes Steed, in his tastes, represents the tradition and the simulated interplanetary invasion are and qualities that we tend to associate with the typical ploys of the most persistent and in British way of life—gracious living, family heir corrigible series ever to appear on American looms, a cultivated appreciation of food, wine television. and horseflesh, exquisite tailoring, a high-handed way with underlings, and various endearing eccen tricities and character quirks. The very British nature of the series is further Dram a’s history exemplified by its style of plotting. The initial sequence la calculated to engage the viewer’s The "Avengers" cult Is a select but vocif curiosity with earns blzzare occurrence which is erous group which has succeeded twice in rescuing seldom tmilalasd until the minutes. the highly successful British series from the axe These openers have Included the reversion of s of the American BroadcastlngCompanyprogram grown man .to childhood behavior, dm rising of a ming department. Notice of cancellation for die ghost, and a hijacking by an invisible foe. program following its inclusion as a midseason As the hour develops, the viewer finds himself replacement in March of 1966 generated an Increasingly In the dark, totally unable to decipher enormous deluge of viewer response, all favoring the on-screen manifestations. Virtually always, the continuation of the show. the explanation of the initial phenomenon Is even more absurd than the observed occurence. Yet, Consequently, when midseason came around the televiewer is so relieved to be free of die last year, the network proffered 18 new episodes, excruciating suspense and confusion which have plus reruns. However, floundering ratings (which accrued, that he is willing to accept the unmasking most likely were brought on by its 10 p u n . of a time machine aa a mansion on a turntable, Friday time slot— an inconvenient time for the of an ectopiarnnlc manifestation as the machin group which most appreciates the show) coupled ations of an underground army of 10,000 waiting with production problems at Associated British to conquer England, and of die reversions to Elstree Studios, prompted a second canning. childhood as effects a t a psychedelic drug, Once again, feedback to the web was sufficient absorbed through the fingertips. ly strong to ’induce a third "second season” resurrection. Transm ission on ABC commenced Ja n . 10. Bizzare tw ists But the history of "The Avengers” extends The bizzare twists of the scripts are heightened back to 1961 when a straight espionage drama by the various production values. While the by the same name premiered on British Inde cam era work on most television series tends to pendent T elevi sion. be straightforward and unimaginative, "The The story line of the first segment featured Avengers” people consistently employ unusual a young doctor, played by Ian Hendry who set cam era angles, manipulating connotations through out to avenge the death of his fiance, who was perspective. A head-on shot of die bottom of a accidentally shot in a London street by thugs stilt used as a ramrod, or an ant's eye view of on an espionage chase. The doctor's crusading a corpse, is commonplace on die program. zeal against the killers was co-opted to assist The archetypal ’’Avengers” shot has been the British Secret Service by undercover agent described as "a dead foce seen upside down John Steed (Patrick MacNee). suspended in n washing machine." This so t of dramatic cam era angle typifies the series’ non ■MacNee, though, was adverse to die seriousness chalant treatment of violence, which along with of the format and conspired to introduce the sex-appeal and shaded comedy, runs rampart tongue-in-cheek slant which has come to be throughout. the tele series' most salient feature. In fret, it la Just this elegance of presentation which commutes excessive violence (It is a ra re episode when fewer than five men are dis The partnership between professional Steed posed of in some uncommon manner) from and “talented amateur” Hendry lamed for 26 blemish to vlrture. episodes, until Hendry went into motion pictures Sometime In March, "The Avengers’* will and a second series was mounted in 1962 with undergo another transition when Linds Thor son MacNee continuing as Steed and Hendry’s char replaces Diana Rigg, becoming MacNee’s fourth acter replaced by another amateur assistant, partner. Mrs. Catherine Gale, an attractive widow of Associated BrltlshCorporation, which produces independent means and skills ranging from an the program, promises that the Thorson charac thropology to judo. ter, T ara King, will be the daughter of a pros perous former and have all the skills associated This coupling lasted through two sets of 26 with an open-air life in addition to the benefits episodes each, boosting ‘The Avengers” to the of a finishing school education. top spot in die English ratings and creating a T ara King will be a completely different national following for MacNee ^id co-star Honor individual from M rs. Peel and M rs. Gala, being Blackman, whose booted, black leather image led "essentially warm, feminine and sexy, with an to her casting as Pussy Galore in "Goldfinger.” exuberant and Jaunty approach to her adventures. These 52 segments, on videotape, were sold She will do some fighting, but will be known to abroad, winning wide recognition for the duo in scream for help on occasion, and will rely more such countries as Canada, Australia and Italy. on feminine guile than muscular skill.” The MacNee-Blackman shows have never been Even the production staff will be changed, seen in the United States. with Gordon Scott, John Bryce and Jack Green The big change came with the introduction wood taking over from Wintle and Clemmens. of M iss Blackman’s replacement, Diana Rigg, 1 0 Michigan State News, East Lansing, Michigan POETRY
Photo by Mike Schoenhofen
Child playing Adrift Blond hair flying, the little boy clim bs the slide— Mettl frame shining, like silver on playground dirt; Have the snowflakes stopped Catch his smile: slip — slide — bounce ... their waltz He skids to landing, mud on his shirt. across my lawn? “No highs; knuckles down tight. . — at nine years old, (It’s midnight now) It’s Spring; kite flying tomorrow; Today his precious ball bearing makes him glad I ’m not deceived one candy cane To be alive; he’s winning bright marbles, or trying, trying. Although the green bay windows s u r e ly Kids play tag. the giant slide is busy with its thrill, Tempt me Into thinking (Eight quick years ago, he shot for marbles like they do). That some ice Enough! Enough! It’s timer for something new: is not beneath Underneath a tree, with shade for two; the snow Which I shall saturate tomorrow morning Is it her voice that makes him see those cherry blossoms On my way to school On s winter day, when leaves are dead? — Paul Carrlck O r is he Just a boy in love Riding snowbound on a Springtime sled?
— Paul Carrick Free flight
The bluebird hurried Wildflowers wept
She flew away— while I went leaping Trilogy m a d ly Catch that beautyl I Silken feathers warm want to know 1 Through crystal airways what happens in rid in g, to sun at night gentle gush of tenderly glidin g, She had had enough . . . i want to know ed compendium of pri (Guess I was a bitch’s burden) what happens mordial hatred and to swans that rape fe a r having to find itself and the others temple Down she sent me down, down, down, 1 want to know at that other end where it Departing on the best of terms: what happens stops its energy burnt, to the tree of life y o u r self rests in the m issing innocence from whence that k ille r Me, courting death and she when i strike so u l was born, yet with the flying hastily a m atch very next shot dism issed of the ancient aw ay scorn the temples of god became his tomb. 1 wonder why I'm here? Oh yes, the clouds — They saved my life they told me II — Michael Calcaterra in a hu sh How only fools chase flying birds where Is the i — Paul Carrick w hen thou i s gone
Into what goes M ich a* I Calcaterra, Okamos junior, Is a thou when it Is gone married student majoring In philosophy. In Paul Carrick, Atlanta, Ga. junior, received his poetry, he starts from the basis of Martin one of eleven scholarships to Georgetown Uni when die reason for Buber’s philosophizing In the second section of versity’s W riters Conference during 1967. His It his ’’Trilogy.” He writes stories and plays m ajor Is Philosophy. i s the 1 a s w a ll.
that is gone Thursday, January 18, 1968 ff
BOOKMARKS Environment: key to new theater
By DAVID GILBERT these plays are consciously concerned with theme, motifs, characterization or what not, but aim at The startling realization has come that the providing as complete an experience as possible. theatre, as it exists today, is perhaps no longer The concern Is with the relationship between actor a viable farm af communications. and audience, an attempt to confront the audience With tickets to off-Broadway productions cost with life, and to see what both actors and audience ing $7.50 a piece, and $25 or more on Broadway, are going to do about it. then theatre is reaching very few people indeed. T h is particular attitude has caused a number oi In addition, it is difficult for the audience to people to do some real thinking about the theatre, experience the intense feeling of involvement in a among them drama critic Walter Kerr, who said, play when it is seated so far away from the produc ‘The whole theatrical process itself needs to be tion that the actors’ faces are visible only through rethought; and this fs the moment for doing it,” opera glasses. Richard Schechner, editor of ’The Drama Re In what appears to be an answer to this prob view'* (formerly “Tulane Drama Review”) pro lem, Sam Shepard’s Five Plays is a particularly posed, “ Let die theatres come down, and let’s not significant document, for it provides an excellent rebuild them. There’s something better to do.” Introduction to an innovation in contem pora ry The only alternative today seems to be the theatre: die Environmental Theatre. experiments being conducted by the Environmen Example: “Icarus’s Mother" is about a picnic. tal Theatre: forsaking the theatres and stages It’s also about reality and truth and illusion, and for the streets. T his is precisely what the Breac gam es people play, and the fear of the bomb. But and Puppet Theatre and the Teatro Campeslnc in a way, it has nothing to do with anything at all. have done. A s Peter Schumann says: And if you don’t see the play, then it is even less “Icarus’s M other" illustrates something that is We’ve had our best - and sometimes our of anything. valid even in the reading of Shepard’splays:They most stupid - To read of a situation like this is to read die are unbelievably, vitally alive. Without knowing performances in die streets. Sometimes you script of the movie “Blowup”: you aren’t hit by why, you feel almost as though you have not m ake anything much. But the effect of seeing Shepard's only witnessed but participated in something. If your point because your point is simply play is to fill you with preposterous feelings and it’s not quite real, at least it’s very much alive. to be there you feel the sweat that die characters are sup T his type of play— an experimental rather than in die street. posed to be exhibiting, and you are conscious of a a disengaged play— is representative of the Off- The idea of confrontation is a tremendously strong desire to go to the bathroom. And maybe, off-Broadway plays being presented in coffee exciting one. It is the startling effect of life for one moment, you are scared— scared of what houses and subbasements like Cafe La Mama, rearing up on its hind legs and suddenly involv you don’t know . Cafe Clno, and Judson Poets’ Theatre. Few of ing you in a pattern that you have never seen before. It is, in two words, living poetry. One wonders what die effect would be on die Michigan State campus if the theatre department, P.A.C., or even “involved individuals*’ were to act out ten minute dram as in front of Berkey Hall or on the bridge next to Besaey. T his type of theatre is essential to the vitality of theatre in provoking thought end involvement. On diis campus, like nowhere else, die play can have its most profound effect on young minds still in the process of formulating the world of themselves. I suggest that the theatre department consider this type of theatre, for it has a unique potential contribution. No one would ever know for sure whethei the drama in which he was involved was real or pretended. And across dlls boundary we must continually pass, never knowing in our most reel imagination or our most Imaginative reality who we are, but only our relationship to others and the Other.
COLLAGE
Eric Planln — Executive Editor
Contributors . . . Dave Gilbert, Law rence Battistinl, Mitch M iller, Jim Roos, Stuart Rosenthal, Jeff Justin, Jim Yous— ling, Inge, Paul Carrick, Michael Calca t e r r a . Photo by Bob Ivins ■sasassi McLuhan’s media message (Continued from page 8.) countries could find only in marching armies. Vietnam. We are Involved with others whether if ell 'society recognized it by sqiplylng a stage But our world Is changing and McLuhan tells we like It or not. Whether the television shows and supporting characters. u s how : cartoons or operas, one thing Is cm sisi the The morality play has evolved Into the theater The medium, or process, at our time— electric media of the last two dectdoo are creating an of the absurd. The culture at the p rin tin g p r e s s technology— is reshaping and restructuring aural, interdependent society, a society of in replaced emotional individuality with individuality patterns of social Interdependence and every volving speech rather than abstracting print. at function. The specialization at the factory aspect of our personal life . . . Electric Electric circuitry has connected the world into assembly line, however, resulted in m ass pro technology fosters and encourages unification a tribal village. duction. Cut off from a living emotlaoal in and involvement. volvement In society by western culture's shift Thus, the chasm between youth and their from aural speech to visual printing, fragmented The phone In your home that reaches virtually parents, bstwesa today’s dlsssm and today’s In their own lives, men sought same way to every other home In America, the television that establishment is mere than a generation gap. w p w « their emotional force. turng the whole country into one living room, It has the distance that exists between literate The assembly H«*« of print and factories have reversed the explosion of print. We are men and tribal man. And the conflict Is Imaged ■nwhlwl the i«»n«w m ass production of the to being imploded beck into sural culture, a process In International relations. The advanced nations’ talitarian state. Totalitarianism in Germany, that compares in violence to the 500 year old implosion is encotsirerlng the explosion of back Italy, Russia, and fh iM has resulted as an ex visual explosion as the violence of hydrogen fusion ward countries. From McLuhan’s p rin cip le s plosion when the emotional Involvement of an aural compares to atomic fission. it seem s obvious that, as in no other age, under culture tried to convert rapidly to a visual in dustrial culture. In RwgUnd and America the Media in the past have extended parts of our standing and cooperation are needed. Other transition went more slowly. The British Empire bodies. Electric media, however, have external wise, considering man’s depth involvement la today* s world, the explosions w ill become physical and the American frontier absorbed the visual ized our whole central nervous systems. We «plosion, offering the visual spectacle aural can hear and see and even feel the rifle shots In 12 Michigan State News, East Lansing, Michigan Thursday, January 18, 1968 Vietnam before the West
(Continued from page 5.) perous and comparatively happy land. The power of which it was an Integral pert and Its pro of the state was considerable and Annam was on tector against external aggression. Had Viet Incompetent officials, and that the Chinese nation the verge of extending Its domination over Cam nam been spared from the rapacity, aggression had fc H « far behind the newly Industrialized West bodia and Laos. The heart of this viable state and conquest of the West, It might well have In technological development (and especially In was. no longer Hanoi, but Hue. This period was adjusted to the modern lndustrihl world in Its the te ch n o lo gy o f w a rfa re )« Indeed In many respects the apogee of Annam. own way (like Japan did) and succeeding genera It was a truly independent state and master tions might have been spared the suffering, During the reigns of the three capable em Of Its own destiny although, like Korea and m isery and anguish which has tormented that land perors who followed d a Long, the moral and certain other states. It recognized the mild and for nearly a century. Intellectual Influence of China again became actually beneficial "suzerainty" of imperial China predominant. These Vietnamese rulers, like as the center and custodian of the civilization Next: The French conquest and loss of Vietnam. the Chinese, regarded the Westerners as ar rogant and aggressive ••barbarians*' who werepo be kept at as safe a distance as possible. Po litical power was centralized In die hands of the sovereign, and all Annamese citizens were re garded as equals before him. Education was made widely available, and administrators were recruited from the citizenry at large, as In China, by means of civil service examinations rather than on the basis of birth. The literati, whether or not they were administrators, comprised the most respected social class. Although theemperor, as In China,was regarded as the Son of Heaven whose powers were absolute, he did not exercise power ahaaliitely and relied on many councilors for advice in the adminis tration of his realm. Confucian values and modes of' social Intercourse prevailed. On the local level, the communal village enjoyed a wide measure of autonomy. As a proverb put It, "The law of the king yields to the customs of the village." The family, based, on Hie Con fucian model and values, was the basic social unit. The burden of the state was actually light, and largely confined to the communal authorities meeting the village’s obligation with regard to taxes, die corvee, and the support of the soldiers of the Imperial army. Just at the H i m when the decisive French Inter vention was about to take place, then, Vietnam was a unified, mildly governed, relatively pros-
M e n d i e
i n w a r
Other than through Wilfred Owen’s eyes And news reports, I do not know of war. But I use mu Imagination.
I see two arm ies as rough whirling grindstones. W hirling In intensely opposite directions To hone away a blade of conflict Forged by the same hands that Installed the grindstones. _ Two grindstones bumping, shocking Pieces off their surfaces, the splintered pieces Arching away In sparks to the floor. They never scrape to die humming shaft at center That controls the scream ing whirling of the edges.
The controller leans In his chair with a cup of ' coffee, Never questioning the presence of the machine. Besides if It were stilled, he could not stand the silence That would place him as at the doorway of a g re a t, c a rv e d ro o m ; Magnificence far above his station Scorning him to be other than his function. So he Is the one who suggested a method To keep the shafts whirling while changing shattered discs.
War’s reason, sometimes. Is the child’s pleasure At wild sparks dying in a whisper.
W ar kills freedom before killing men. They give up freedom but retain Its religious aura in putting it far from them As an Ideal they can Invoke and kill to attain. For they hate the way freedom exposes each man to blam e. And that Is why war will never end.
Stop the shaft at center. Awake the controller. Help him to bear the silence Immovable ih the wake of freedom.
Jeff Justin